Automatic origami: “programmable matter” can fold itself

Watch your backs, professional origamists: researchers have built a sheet of …

Watch your backs, professional origamists: researchers are working on a sheet of material that can fold itself. The sheets of material, called "programmable matter" by their inventors, use electric pulses to stimulate themselves into various folded shapes.

So far, one sheet can fold itself into a little boat or an airplane, but the creators envision wide-ranging applications for their programmable matter, from shelving to measuring utensils to a modern Swiss Army knife.

The programmable matter actually works much like origami, and the researchers have integrated some origami folding into its development. One of the first steps in the creation of their folding algorithms is to record a step-by-step unfolding of a real origami object, which they can then reverse and apply to the programmable matter sheets.

The half-millimeter thick sheets used in the experiment are squares made up of 32 triangles joined by flexible silicon seams. Each triangle has an actuator wired to it which, when stimulated, can force the triangle to fold at an angle to the surrounding triangles.

The folding instructions are stored in stickers that users can place on the surface of the sheet. Once a current is supplied, the sheet executes the folding algorithm in the sticker, following the steps until it reaches its final shape.

Of course, one sheet can't turn into an infinite amount of things without being programmed to do so first. To make one sheet that can become multiple different objects, the sheet must be designed with folding joints to accommodate all the sets of folding steps.

For example, the sheet discussed in the paper was designed only to take instructions for a boat shape and an airplane shape; any other model might require folds the design can't accommodate, unless the folding steps are reverse-engineered to accommodate the sheet.

Presumably, the more diverse the shapes that a sheet needs to take, the more complicated its design will be. Still, researchers imagine that larger sheets with more folding points could lead to items like a Swiss Army knife-style sheet that could fold into a tripod, a wrench, or an antenna.

Casey Johnston
Casey Johnston is the former Culture Editor at Ars Technica, and now does the occasional freelance story. She graduated from Columbia University with a degree in Applied Physics. Twitter@caseyjohnston